Refreshed 2021 M5 Competition is a Stress-Free Super Sedan
When BMW refreshed the hardcore M5 Competition, it kept what made it great and improved upon its major weakness.
While the refreshed 2021 BMW M5 Competition is no longer the most extreme version of the super sedan you can buy, it has attractive new looks, a bonkers amount of power, and a mindboggling ability to balance its supercar performance with its executive express comfort. And as Mark Sanew and Jack Holmes from the savagegeese YouTube channel explain, the 2021 model has learned from its predecessor’s biggest mistake.
Like every other car that undergoes a midcycle refresh, the new M5 Competition has new front and rear fascias. More important is the fact that, as Holmes puts it, it doesn’t have “the bucktooth treatment done on the M3 and M4.”
The M5’s reserved interior is full of high-quality materials and equipped with iDrive, which Holmes deems the best infotainment system in the premium segment. While its family resemblance to other modern BMWs is instantly recognizable, it also works against the automaker. Holmes says, “That has the unintended consequence of stripping away some of the specialness found in their higher-end products, like this M5.”
It’s a different story once Sanew and Holmes get the $136,045 (as tested) M5 up on a lift. That shows all of the hardware and materials that that sticker price money buys. For 2021, the shocks and spring rates are new. One of the most significant changes to the M5’s suspension can’t be seen, though.
The good news is it can be felt on the road. BMW tweaked the dampers to be more comfortable on the highway, which was one of the outgoing M5 Competition model’s major weaknesses, particularly to Sanew, who felt as if he had gotten beaten up after driving it.
Combine that improved suspension with a perfectly luxurious interior, twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8 that delivers 617 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque through just the rear or all four wheels, and an unbelievably fast and smooth eight-speed automatic, and it becomes clear that the new M5 Competition is a car that does it all and does it all well. So well that it disguises a driver’s shortcomings. As Sanew puts it, the M5 “makes it easy to go insanely fast and it feels like you have superpowers driving this and … it will mask and take care of a lot of the driving mistakes.”
Depending on who you ask, the M5 does everything a little too well. Sanew acknolwedges the M5’s brilliance, but finds it soulless and devoid of character. Holmes doesn’t disagree and boils it all down to whether a person prefers a car with imperfections that makes a lasting impression or a car that can do everything, no matter how disparate those things may be, with the utmost refinement. It’s been a while since we drove an M5, but we recall it being both. It was memorable because it was able to do so many things so amazingly well. We can’t wait to make new memories in the refreshed model.
Join the 5Series.net forums now!
